Former Nickelodeon actress Jennette McCurdy opens up about trauma

Former Nickelodeon star Jennette McCurdy has opened up about her tumultuous acting career, revealing the experience left her traumatised.

Jennette McCurdy is opening up about her childhood trauma.

McCurdy revealed she was “exploited” when she was a child actor on Nickelodeon’s iCarly and Sam & Cat.

She says her overbearing mother and the television industry were both to blame, as they “failed to protect her,” according to the New York Times.

“My whole childhood and adolescence were very exploited,” McCurdy said, as reported by Fox News.

“ … There were cases where people had the best intentions and maybe didn’t know what they were doing. And also cases where they did — they knew exactly what they were doing.”

The former Nickelodeon star is opening up about her early career.

McCurdy claims she was encouraged to drink alcohol and pose in a bikini.

At the age of 16, McCurdy was entering her third year on the hit teen sitcom iCarly, where she made millions of young viewers laugh by playing the comedic character Sam Puckett.

The former actress gets candid in her new memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died, in which she details her toxic relationship with her mother and her tumultuous time on Nickelodeon.

According to the New York Times, McCurdy, 30, wrote in her memoir about embarrassing moments on the children’s television network when she was asked to be “photographed in a bikini during a wardrobe fitting and being encouraged to drink alcohol by an intimidating figure she simply calls the Creator.”

McCurdy pointed out that when her mother was present, she never interjected or instructed her daughter that this “was the price of showbiz success.”

McCurdy, pictured with co star Nathan Kress, says her mother never interjected during inappropriate moments in her early career.

“Everyone wants what you have,” she allegedly told her daughter.

In McCurdy’s memoir, which will be published on August 9, she recounted auditioning for acting roles at the age of 6 and being “shepherded” into the work by her controlling mother. She also noted that she suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders and anxiety. McCurdy believed she owed her loyalty to her mother, who controlled every aspect of her life.

After McCurdy starred on iCarly, Nickelodeon promised her a spin-off series of her own, but walked back on their offer and made Ariana Grande a co-lead on Sam & Cat.

McCurdy says she felt undermined by the network as they discouraged her from exploring other career opportunities outside the show. However, those rules did not seem to apply to Grande.

“What finally undid me was when Ariana came whistle-toning in with excitement because she had spent the previous evening playing charades at Tom Hanks’s house. That was the moment I broke,” McCurdy wrote.

Sam & Cat aired for only one season during 2013-2014, and after the show’s cancellation, Nickelodeon offered the former actress $300,000 to keep her experiences at the network private, McCurdy said. She refused the offer.

Despite iCarly star Miranda Cosgrove saying that she and McCurdy quickly became friends on the show, she was not completely aware of the challenges her friend faced in her life.

“When you’re young, you’re so in your own head,” Cosgrove told the New York Times. “You can’t imagine that people around you are having much harder struggles.”

Cosgrove noted, “You don’t expect things like that from the person in the room who’s making everyone laugh.”

Nickelodeon did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

This article originally appeared on Fox News and has been reproduced here with permission